A Sword Into Darkness (37 page)

Eight of the non-missile cells contained subprobes for close inspection of the Deltan vessels, while the other two cells carried retransmission pods, essentially an Excalibur missile frame with the warheads changed out for communications gear.  This automated comms probe would monitor the rendezvous and transmit its feed to Earth, as well as re-transmit the telemetry and monitoring data that the
Sword
herself sent back.  It was an insurance plan, to make certain that what happened here, however it might turn out, Earth would know.

There was a clack of a missile hatch opening, and then a gentle bump as the re-trans pod was expelled from its tube.  Nathan watched video from the hull on a secondary screen, as the hatch swung shut and the pod fell away, left behind by their acceleration.  Moments later, the pod’s own engine lit off and it moved toward its own holding position and unfolded an immense dish antenna.

“Bridge, CIC, re-trans pod deployed.  We have a good link.  We’ll begin transmitting on your order.”

“Bridge, aye,” Wright answered.  “Captain?”

Nathan nodded, then realized the XO could not see that with his helmet on.  “Very well.  It’s your show now, Christopher.  You can begin any time.”

“Yes, sir.  Weps/Sensors, commence long-pulse radar and lidar surveys of the alien formation.”

“Aye, aye, sir!”  Yvonne Clark, a former telecom engineer long in Windward’s employ, powered up the dorsal and ventral sensor blisters and began sending ranging pulses out toward the Deltans.

Wright turned to Nathan and Edwards.  “We won’t get much more than range data at this distance, but it ought to be a friendly enough wakeup call in case they’re sleeping.  And we’re still far enough out that we should be fairly safe from any direct fire weapons like they used on
Promise
.”

Edwards smiled.  “So, there is a cynical old warrior in there after all.  I was worried you’d gone all touchy-feely on us, sir.”

Wright laughed.  “Just because I won’t let myself assume they’re hostile, doesn’t mean I’m not open to the possibility.  I’m cautious, not stupid, Master Chief.”  He turned back to the main screen, watching the imperceptibly approaching alien formation.  Range data and some surface features began to augment the picture and information displayed for each contact.  “Radar and lidar are good … but no reaction from the convoy.”

Nathan shrugged.  “That’s fine.  Considering the success of the last two visits, I’ll take no response over a bad one, for the moment at least.  Let’s go ahead and start sending telemetry back home.  We’ll let them be frustrated right alongside us.”

“Aye, aye, sir.  Ops/Comm, lock the main dish on Earth and begin continuous transmission of the tactical log.”

“Begin continuous stream to Earth, aye, sir.  Transmitting now.”  Pauline Rivera, a Windward satellite data-systems tech right out of college, hit the appropriate icons on her panel and the largest antennas on the sensor blisters each slewed around to aim at the distant pinprick of Sol and the invisibly distant Earth.  What happened now would be picked up in slightly less than six months back home.

“Very well.  CIC, Bridge, enable your link to the re-trans pod and start backing up our broadcast home.”

Simmons voice sounded promptly.  “CIC, aye.”  Auxiliary antennas on those same blisters slewed around to lock onto the ever more quickly receding shape of the retransmission pod.  It, in turn, pointed its own dish to Earth as well and began transmitting its own stream back.

Wright checked on the status of everything set into motion upon his screen and nodded in satisfaction.  “All right.  Both data streams are going out.  Everything after this is on the official record.”

Nathan grinned.  “Smile nice and pretty, boys.  We’re on primetime now.”  He nodded toward the main screen, his smile dropping for an expectant, demanding gaze.  “That goes for you too, friends.  What do you have to say to the good peoples of Earth, Mr. Deltan?  Come on, come on.  Talk to us.  Why are you here?”

Silence met his questions.  For a moment, however ludicrous it might be, everyone on the bridge almost anticipated an answer.  Nathan grinned and shook his head.  “Seems we need to knock a bit louder, XO.”

“Yes, sir.  We’ll be starting with primes on a number of frequencies, just like the probes were programmed to do.  Between each sequence, though, we’ll be transmitting the plain language greeting in English, Spanish, Chinese, and Arabic.  Hopefully, they’ll pick up on one or the other.”

“Go ahead.  Once again, this is your show.”

Wright ordered Pauline Rivera to do as he briefed.  Seconds later, a pair of pure tones was transmitted in a number of frequency bands.  Then, three pulses were sent, followed by five after a brief pause.  Then seven, eleven, thirteen, seventeen, counting up and up through all of the base-10 primes from two to 137, a decidedly nonrandom sequence that it was hoped would prove their intelligence and hopefully lead to a mathematical standard which could then be used for translating between two wildly disparate species.

After a hundred and thirty-seven pulses and a correspondingly longer pause, Gordon Lee’s original message went out, slightly altered by computer, his voice haunting the void long after his death.  Hearing it again, Nathan sighed, knowing that Gordon should have been there.

“Greetings to you, our unknown visitors from a nearby star.  We welcome you to our solar system in the name of all the free inhabitants of Earth.  Please allow this ship and crew to make peaceful contact with you, such that we might form some bridge for open and enlightening communication between our two species.”

Again, a brief pause, and then the same message went out in the other, most-prevalent broadcast languages of Earth.  Nathan held his breath.  With the
Promise
, the Deltan convoy had reacted immediately to the transmission of primes.  This time … .

“Nothing.  No response.”  Nathan slapped the armrest of his acceleration chair, disappointed beyond measure.

Wright tried to assuage him.  “We’re still really far out, Nathan.  And
Promise
only began transmitting after doing an extended flyby and survey of the formation.  They may still be dormant.  It’s possible that they’re in some form of suspended animation and takes them a while to come fully out of it.”

Edwards grunted.  “Yeah.  And it’s also possible that they want us to get in effective range of their weapons before they light us up.”

“Master Chief—” the XO said, a warning tone coloring his voice.

“No,” Nathan broke in.  “You could both be right.  And there’s no need to tiptoe around my dashed expectations.  It’s been a year and a half.  Hell, it’s been years longer than that, and I really expected them to say something or do something after we came all this way.  But … they’ll do whatever they’re going to do, regardless of what I want.  Let’s just stick to the plan.  Continue transmitting, continue closing, and keep both eyes on them.”

He pointed at the images of the orbiting formation on screen.  “And you, whoever the hell you are, wake up.  We’ve come calling, and you have some shit to answer for.”

Four hours later, and still answerless, Nathan fumed.  They reached their hold point at 100,000 km, calling out to the Deltans and dutifully reporting back to Earth, but they had nothing to report other than the continued indifference of the aliens.

Overriding Wright, who wanted to hold at that distance for another 24 hours, Nathan ordered him to carry on with the second phase of the contact.  The
Sword of Liberty
moved in again, this time angling ten times closer still.

At 25,000 km, they flushed four more of their non-offensive missile tubes, these carrying recon drones—sub-probes similar to those launched by the
Promise
s.  Each one would make a close approach to a different one of the Deltan ships, and make detailed radar, lidar, thermal, and visual surveys of each, transmitting that data back to the
Sword
.

Finally, at 10,000 km and holding, Nathan popped his helmet and set it in his lap.  He breathed deep of the cool air filling the bridge.  After five and a half hours strapped into his chair, confined to the gradually more pungent environment of his sealed suit, Nathan was hungry, sore, and frustrated beyond belief.  He glared at what he now thought of as his adversaries.

The constrained drive-star blazed huge upon the main screen, casting the bridge in shifting hues of lurid purple, red, and blue.  At each corner of the screen, bracketing the angry sphere of plasma, detailed windows of data described the four alien ships.  They knew everything they could about the outsides of those vessels, short of landing upon them and ripping up hull-plates for analysis, but they knew nothing more of the Deltans themselves than they did before leaving Earth.

The XO unsealed and removed his own helmet, casting a concerned look at Nathan.  He had tried every ploy he could think of to make contact with the Deltans.  They had been through countless iterations of the prime number sequence, and the multilingual greeting as well.  He had tried transmitting short, pulse-driven arithmetic lessons, photos of famous works of art, and video streams in a number of different encoding formats, hoping to pick up on something, anything that the aliens would find compelling.  He had even launched off a visual display—fireworks especially designed for shooting out of the railgun.  Despite their best attempt at a 4th of July celebration, though, the aliens had continued on unperturbed.

Wright laid a hand on Nathan’s rigid shoulder.  “Captain, we didn’t hold at the 100-k point.  Everyone’s been at their stations going on six hours now, and I don’t know about you, but I’m starting to stink inside this thing.  It might be a good idea to break for chow and a change.  If you like, we can move back out to 100,000 km, or we can do it from here.”

Nathan glanced back at him and shook his head.  “No, Christopher.  I know we should have held back, and I agree we should probably break off for now, but, damn it, we shouldn’t have to.  They should have responded in some way by now!  We’ve been hailing them for hours longer than the probes ever managed.  We’re closer now than
Promise II
ever got, and we’re inside the perimeter where
Promise
started broadcasting her prime sequence.”

Edwards took off his helmet as well.  “Yeah, but we’re still outside where the convoy reacted to the probe and began its attack on her.  They could be seeing how close we’ll get before we get skittish and back off.  At this range, the lightspeed time lag is only 3 hundredths of a second, and the tactical reaction delay is under a tenth of a second.  Depending on fast we jink and weave, and how fast they can shift their aim, we’re potentially vulnerable to the beam weapons they demonstrated before.  If we move out now, they could take it as their best chance to fire on us.”

Wright’s eyebrow peaked.  “So, does that mean you’re recommending we move back or that we stay here?”

The Master Chief grinned and shrugged.  “Neither.  I tend to just flap my jaws continuously.  I often surprise myself with what comes out.”

The XO grunted and tried desperately to hide his slight smile beneath a scowl.

Nathan’s gaze had stayed glued to the main screen.  “No.  This isn’t working.  It’s all canned, automated.  We haven’t done one unpredictable thing yet.  For all they know, we could be just another, bigger probe. 
We
haven’t made contact yet, so why should
they
bother with responding to us.”

“Well, Captain,” Wright began, “all other things being equal, predictability often equates to being safe and friendly.  If we attempt to surprise them or shock them into making a response, it could be seen as overtly aggressive.”

Edwards nodded.  “Which is what we really are, XO.  Skipper, we’re monkeys, animals barely come down out of the trees.  We fight with ourselves and when the unknown encroaches on our territory, we lash out at it.  If these guys haven’t figured that out yet from monitoring our TV shows and news, it’s high time we made them aware of it.  Permission to launch one across their bow, sir?”

Nathan smirked and laid a restraining hand on Edwards’ forearm.  “Not quite yet, COB.  Ops/Comm, shut down whatever you’re currently broadcasting to the aliens and give me an open mike.”

“Captain,” Wright began warningly, “these first contact comms were diagrammed out a long time ago by men a lot smarter than you or me—and vetted by Gordon Lee himself.  Are you sure you want to upset that plan?”

Nathan looked exasperated.  “Damn it, Christopher, the Deltans weren’t at those meetings and they aren’t cooperating with our freaking plans.  I respect Gordon more than you can possibly know, but he—and you—both know the maxim that no plan survives contact with the enemy.  Now, I’m not prepared to fully classify the Deltans as my enemy, but they for certain aren’t trying to be our friends.  Now, I’m going to call them up and ask them, essentially, ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’  Are you behind me on this plan or not?”

No one said a word.  Finally, his eyes cast downward, Wright answered.  “I’m with you, Nathan, every step of the way.”